... The bank's customers should pass a spelling and grammar test before their account is opened. Then they wouldn't get spoofed by people using words like "unsuccessfull" and "att empt" and "Ip address".:-P
A company I deal with had a really poor pagerank before xmas -- it came about 17th on the list for the relevant search terms, which (as I pointed out to the CEO) means it wasn't going to be seen by most searchers. I also, naively, pointed out that they should take the time to optimise the site properly, not just go to some SEO company for a quick fix. Their solution? The quick fix. Now they're #1, and repeated reporting to Google has done nothing to change this.
They're using what I think are called "doorway pages", which works like this: You are an SEO company who wants to optimise a site selling books. So you find a number of sites which have excellent pagerank for "books" in Google, and you pay those sites to fix their pages so they show one thing to ordinary users (their standard page) but something different to Googlebot. With Googlebot, the sites redirect to whichever site is getting the optimisation treatment that week. So it looks like all the thousands of links from other sites to (say) "blahblahbooks.co.uk" are in fact pointing to the site which is getting SEO'd. You can check by seeing which sites in Google link to the SEO'd site, then checking the pages returned to see if they really do link to that site. Checking the Google cache for "blahblahbooks.co.uk" will also show you the SEO'd site rather than their regular page.
No idea why Google doesn't pick up on this, and equally why they don't fix their index if it's reported. I guess they're making money hand over fist so why care?
It's simply a question of choice, nothing to do with who owns it or their biases. I don't want to pay money to Murdoch or the BBC. If you do, then you can (or should be able to) subscribe rather than be forced to pay for something you have no intention of using.
This is why the Beeb quite simply 'rock' and why the license fee is worth every penny.
This is rubbish. I don't pay the licence fee because I don't have a television. Note that (if I did have one) I wouldn't have to pay the licence fee because I watch their programmes: merely owning a television which is capable of receiving their programmes makes me liable to pay. It matters not that I only watch Sky or MTV, I have to pay the TV tax for owning a TV.
This move from the BBC paves the way for them to collect the TV tax from people like me who have a PC for everything *but* watching their programmes. I don't like their stuff, but I would still be required to pay for it as soon as they can classify a PC as a device which is capable of receiving their programmes.
If this sounds paranoid, read this If the BBC were truly about modernising, they'd get rid of their antique and ridiculous soviet-style taxation-based payment methods, and move to subscriptions. That way, we'd all get a choice about whether to pay or not regardless of where we live.
You may not understand how it works in the EU: basically, there are EU directives which each national government is required to implement via its own legislative processes. There's no real choice about it. The real problem about this is the EU is not a very democratic organisation, ie the EU Commission isn't even an elected body and Euro MPs don't expect to be bothered by those who vote for them (like when anti-software-patent activists were accused of "harassing" their Euro-MPs by lobbying them).
So the UK continues its long tradition of repressive legislation and most people will say "Fair enough, I'm prepared to put up with a little more inconvenience if it stops the real crooks." But of course, it doesn't stop them and our liberties get eroded a little more. Trouble is, we're sometimes just a bit too tolerant, esp. of our lousy government and Europe.
And all this despite the good friendship between Bill Gates and Tony Blair
They fell out long ago. Tony expected Bill to provide UK schools with free software back in '97, but it didn't happen. Then he went along to M$ HQ in the UK during the last election, thinking it would be a good photo opportunity, and instead M$ used him to launch the latest Windows XP.
I think Bliar finally got used to the way businesses like M$ work...
I recently started working at a.gov establishment where this has been discussed *only* in response to numerous press queries recently (the place I'm working at is actively engaged in research in the Antarctic). The "highway" under discussion is the same as the ice runways built to land aircraft -- which means we're not talking 3 lanes each way, complete with asphalt and McDonalds. It's a way to get equipment to the pole without necessarily needing expensive aircraft. It doesn't even deserve to be called a highway, it's just a smooth piece of ice and it may not even be constructed.
I recently took up a job in a College in the UK. As part of the Summer upgrade schedule, I have to purchase about 30 new PCs, with operating system and Office software. The plan was to move the OS (W2K) from the old systems to the new, which I thought would be OK because the OS was purchased separately from the PCs themselves.
When I told this to the PC supplier's rep, he became very, very agitated -- to the point that he seemed so rude I nearly told him to leave. He said we couldn't move the OS from one system to another, and (furthermore) they wouldn't sell PCs without a version of Windows on them.
I checked this on a sys admin mailing list I subscribe to. He was right: MS sued a company for supplying OS-less PCs, and could have bankrupted them with the court judgement (UKP100,000 fine). That's why the rep became so agitated: he didn't want the same fate for his company.
I don't know which aspects of the law come into play here, or which part of the EULA fine-print, but at the moment I'm looking for ways to increase the use of Linux and may be able to persuade some of our users to use it. In the end, this might work in favour of alternative operating systems: contrary to what M$ seem to believe, many of their customers do not have unlimited funds and will seek alternatives.
Slashdot Mirror
Didn't work on Firefox when I tried it earlier today. Move along please ...
they were encouraged to regard all politicians as corrupt or mendacious by the media
Since Blair's government is currently under criminal investigation, it's a viewpoint which is entirely sustained by the available evidence.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2006/11/17/npeers17.xml
... The bank's customers should pass a spelling and grammar test before their account is opened. Then they wouldn't get spoofed by people using words like "unsuccessfull" and "att empt" and "Ip address". :-P
Google Co-op beta is a community where users can contribute their knowledge and expertise to improve Google search for everyone.
So they're going to start eliminating blatant spam when it's reported? Kewl!
A company I deal with had a really poor pagerank before xmas -- it came about 17th on the list for the relevant search terms, which (as I pointed out to the CEO) means it wasn't going to be seen by most searchers. I also, naively, pointed out that they should take the time to optimise the site properly, not just go to some SEO company for a quick fix. Their solution? The quick fix. Now they're #1, and repeated reporting to Google has done nothing to change this.
They're using what I think are called "doorway pages", which works like this: You are an SEO company who wants to optimise a site selling books. So you find a number of sites which have excellent pagerank for "books" in Google, and you pay those sites to fix their pages so they show one thing to ordinary users (their standard page) but something different to Googlebot. With Googlebot, the sites redirect to whichever site is getting the optimisation treatment that week. So it looks like all the thousands of links from other sites to (say) "blahblahbooks.co.uk" are in fact pointing to the site which is getting SEO'd. You can check by seeing which sites in Google link to the SEO'd site, then checking the pages returned to see if they really do link to that site. Checking the Google cache for "blahblahbooks.co.uk" will also show you the SEO'd site rather than their regular page.
No idea why Google doesn't pick up on this, and equally why they don't fix their index if it's reported. I guess they're making money hand over fist so why care?
it's just that using a Times article to justify a paranoia that the BBC is going to get a licence fee from PC users is just absurd
:)
OK, I'll use a BBC article then, and our old friend The Register.
Anyway, Murdoch's not all bad, because he owns Fox, and Fox make The Simpsons, and The Simpsons was the *only* reason I used to watch the BBC anyway
It's simply a question of choice, nothing to do with who owns it or their biases. I don't want to pay money to Murdoch or the BBC. If you do, then you can (or should be able to) subscribe rather than be forced to pay for something you have no intention of using.
This is why the Beeb quite simply 'rock' and why the license fee is worth every penny.
This is rubbish. I don't pay the licence fee because I don't have a television. Note that (if I did have one) I wouldn't have to pay the licence fee because I watch their programmes: merely owning a television which is capable of receiving their programmes makes me liable to pay. It matters not that I only watch Sky or MTV, I have to pay the TV tax for owning a TV.
This move from the BBC paves the way for them to collect the TV tax from people like me who have a PC for everything *but* watching their programmes. I don't like their stuff, but I would still be required to pay for it as soon as they can classify a PC as a device which is capable of receiving their programmes.
If this sounds paranoid, read this If the BBC were truly about modernising, they'd get rid of their antique and ridiculous soviet-style taxation-based payment methods, and move to subscriptions. That way, we'd all get a choice about whether to pay or not regardless of where we live.
You may not understand how it works in the EU: basically, there are EU directives which each national government is required to implement via its own legislative processes. There's no real choice about it. The real problem about this is the EU is not a very democratic organisation, ie the EU Commission isn't even an elected body and Euro MPs don't expect to be bothered by those who vote for them (like when anti-software-patent activists were accused of "harassing" their Euro-MPs by lobbying them).
So the UK continues its long tradition of repressive legislation and most people will say "Fair enough, I'm prepared to put up with a little more inconvenience if it stops the real crooks." But of course, it doesn't stop them and our liberties get eroded a little more. Trouble is, we're sometimes just a bit too tolerant, esp. of our lousy government and Europe.
And all this despite the good friendship between Bill Gates and Tony Blair
They fell out long ago. Tony expected Bill to provide UK schools with free software back in '97, but it didn't happen. Then he went along to M$ HQ in the UK during the last election, thinking it would be a good photo opportunity, and instead M$ used him to launch the latest Windows XP.
I think Bliar finally got used to the way businesses like M$ work...
I recently started working at a .gov establishment where this has been discussed *only* in response to numerous press queries recently (the place I'm working at is actively engaged in research in the Antarctic). The "highway" under discussion is the same as the ice runways built to land aircraft -- which means we're not talking 3 lanes each way, complete with asphalt and McDonalds. It's a way to get equipment to the pole without necessarily needing expensive aircraft. It doesn't even deserve to be called a highway, it's just a smooth piece of ice and it may not even be constructed.
I recently took up a job in a College in the UK. As part of the Summer upgrade schedule, I have to purchase about 30 new PCs, with operating system and Office software. The plan was to move the OS (W2K) from the old systems to the new, which I thought would be OK because the OS was purchased separately from the PCs themselves.
When I told this to the PC supplier's rep, he became very, very agitated -- to the point that he seemed so rude I nearly told him to leave. He said we couldn't move the OS from one system to another, and (furthermore) they wouldn't sell PCs without a version of Windows on them.
I checked this on a sys admin mailing list I subscribe to. He was right: MS sued a company for supplying OS-less PCs, and could have bankrupted them with the court judgement (UKP100,000 fine). That's why the rep became so agitated: he didn't want the same fate for his company.
I don't know which aspects of the law come into play here, or which part of the EULA fine-print, but at the moment I'm looking for ways to increase the use of Linux and may be able to persuade some of our users to use it. In the end, this might work in favour of alternative operating systems: contrary to what M$ seem to believe, many of their customers do not have unlimited funds and will seek alternatives.